Tent encampments in a downward trend: city officials

Officials with the City of Lethbridge say they are continuing to see a downward trend in the number of tent encampments. That’s according to their Encampment Strategy team. Since August, only four cleanups have been done with an average of less than 400 kilograms of debris per cleanup. Since June, however, there have been 116 calls made to the city regarding encampments. Officials with the city say they have been able to re-allocate funding directed for needle debris cleanup which helps to support the Clean Sweep Program.  

“So a bit of a moving of funds on our side. The Clean Sweep Program has been an integral part of our response, really being the ones that come in after we’ve provided the supports and move people along to help clean up the community. And so we had an existing agreement from the government, Alberta, to provide funding for needle collection and our needle collection and our community has shifted a little bit over the last year. And so now what we’re seeing is a lot of those efforts are actually tied to the encampment cleanups.”

The final encampment update will go to council next month. Officials say in total more than 28,600 kilograms of debris has been removed through the encampment cleanups in Lethbridge.